2. However, this does not mean
fatalistic necessity, for the destruction of human liberty.

3. Consequently, man is free whether he
accepts grace and does good or whether he rejects it and does
evil.

4. God desires that all men obtain
eternal happiness.

5. Christ has died for all men, though
not all avail themselves of the benefits of redemption.

6. God preordained both eternal
happiness and the good works of the elect.

7. God predestined no one positively to
hell, much less sin.

8. Consequently, just as no one is saved
against His will, so the reprobate perish solely on account of
their wickedness.

9. God foresaw the everlasting pains of
the impious from all eternity, and preordained this punishment on
account of their sins.

10. However, He does not fail therefore
to hold out the grace of conversion to sinners, or pass over
those who are not predestined.

11. As long as the reprobate live on
earth, they may be accounted true Christians and members of the
Church, just as on the other hand the predestined may be outside
the pale of Christianity and of the Church.

12. Without special revelation, no one
can know with certainty that he belongs to the number of the
elect.

13. With our faith in Christ and
perseverance in obedience (2 Pet 1:10) we can have what is called
a "moral certitude" of our salvation.

SUMMARY OF CATHOLIC TEACHING

1. God knows all things, including those
who will be saved (THE ELECT). 2. God's foreknowledge does not
destroy, but includes, free will. 3. God desires all men to be
saved. 4. Jesus died to redeem all men. 5. God provides
sufficient grace for all men to be saved. 6. Man, in the exercise
of his free will, can accept or reject grace. 7. Those who accept
grace are saved, or born-again. 8. Those who are born-again can
fall away or fall into sin. 9. Not everyone who is saved will
persevere in grace. 10. Those who do persevere are God's elect.
11. Those who do not persevere, or who never accepted grace, are
the reprobate. 12. Since we can always reject God in this life,
we have no absolute assurance that we will persevere. 13. We can
have a moral assurance of salvation if we maintain faith and keep
God's commandments (1 John 2:1-6; 3:19-23; 5:1-3,13).

IMPORTANT DISTINCTIONS

1. Predestination is not
predetermination :

"Predestination is nothing else
than the foreknowledge and foreordaining of those gracious
gifts which make certain the salvation of all who are
saved." (St. Augustine, Persever 14:35)

Predestination is God's decree of the
happiness of the elect. God's infallible foreknowledge (and thus
predestination also) includes free will. God's foreknowledge
cannot force upon man unavoidable coercion, for the simple reason
that it is at bottom nothing else than the eternal vision of the
future historical actuality. God foresees the free activity of a
man precisely as that individual is willing to shape it,
predestination is not predetermination of the human will.

2. Election is a consequence of God's
foreknowledge :

By definition, the ELECT are those whom
God infallibly foresees will be saved (Rom 8:28-30). By this
definition, it is impossible for the elect to be lost, precisely
because God foreknows who will not be lost. But since election
depends on God's infallible foreknowledge, we simply have no way
of knowing whether or not we are in that category -- God knows
with certainty His elect, but we do not. The elect are
predestined in the sense that God knows them, and enables them by
grace, to be saved.

3. Free will can resist and reject God's
grace :

"You stiff-necked people...you
always resist the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:51). The angels
possessed grace and perfectly intact intellect, and yet many of
them freely sinned and rejected God. Adam and Eve possessed grace
and a perfectly intact nature, and yet they freely sinned. How
much more so is it possible for the born-again Christian, who
possesses grace but also a wounded nature and a darkened
intellect, to sin also. Paul mentions sins which keep a man from
the Kingdom of God: fornication, adultery, homosexuality, theft,
greed, and so on (1 Cor 6:9-10).

When Jesus was expressly asked what one
must do to gain eternal life, he answered, "keep the
commandments," and went on to list the moral commandments of
the Decalogue (Matt 19:16-21). Revelation describes those whose
lot is the burning pool of fire and sulfur, the second death:
"cowards, the unfaithful, the depraved, murderers, the
unchaste" and so on (Rev 21:8). Aren't born-again Christians
capable of these sins? And if they die in these sins, how can
they possibly inherit heaven? If Adam and Eve could fall from
grace, surely we can fall from grace as well. Surely we can
harden our hearts and resist the Holy Spirit.

4. We cannot confuse Election with being
"Born Again" :

The set of those who are "born
again" (in Catholic and historic Christian understanding
those who have been regenerated "of water and Spirit"
in the Sacrament of Baptism -- John 3:3,5; Acts 2:38) is not
necessarily co-extensive with the set of those who will persevere
and gain eternal life. Born-again Christians can and (sadly) do
fall away. Otherwise free will and (mortal) sin are merely
fictitious for a Christian during this life of testing and
pilgrimage. Otherwise all the language in Scripture of
persevering to the end in order to be saved (cf. Matt 10:22;
24:13; Phil 2:12-13) makes no sense.

The Pelagian heretics held that man
alone (apart from God's grace) is responsible for his salvation.
Calvinists start with the opposite premise that God alone is
responsible for man's salvation.

CALVINISM IS UNREASONABLE

Calvin located the reason of
predestination solely in the absolute will of God. But by making
God alone responsible for everything, Calvin abolished the free
cooperation of the will in obtaining eternal happiness. Therefore
he was logically forced to admit an irresistible efficacious
grace, to deny the freedom of the will when influenced by grace,
and to completely reject supernatural merits (as a secondary
reason for eternal happiness).

Not only is God completely responsible
for the salvation of the elect, but He must also be responsible
for the damnation of the reprobate, even to the point of directly
willing their sins. Since God wills everything good for the
elect, as well as everything bad for the reprobate, Calvin
maintained that Christ died only for the elect (this is challenged by Geisler's
recent book Chosen But Free, see link below):

"As Scripture, then, clearly
shows, we say that God once established by his eternal and
unchangeable plan those whom he long before determined once
for all to receive into salvation, and those whom, on the
other hand, he would devote to destruction.

"We assert that, with respect
to the elect, this plan was founded upon his freely given
mercy, without regard to human worth; but by his just and
irreprehensible but incomprehensible judgment he has barred
the door of life to those whom he has given over to
damnation." (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion Book III:21:7)

Salvation and damnation depend wholly on
the will of God -- man is completely predetermined to one or the
other by irresistible grace or the lack thereof, without any
cooperation or resistance of his will. Since grace is
irresistible, the will of the predestined is not free to
cooperate with grace to perform meritorious good works, and so
salvation is purely arbitrary. Even more disturbing, since
concupiscence is likewise irresistible without God's grace, the
will of the reprobate is not really free to sin and perform
culpably evil works, and so damnation is not caused by demerits.

For Calvin, whom God selects, He saves;
whom God rejects, He damns.

CALVINISM IS UNBIBLICAL

But consider what this means and whether
this is biblical :

1. No truly free will (denied by
experience, and by the Gospel commands to repent, reform, obey
the commandments, perform works of charity, and persevere to the
end).

2. Thus no merit or demerit (denied by
the whole Bible which testifies to the rewards and punishments
God will apportion to all men according to their deeds, e.g. Matt
16:27; Rom 2:5-10; 2 Cor 5:10; Rev 22:11-12; etc).

6. God directly predetermines the
salvation of the elect, including their good works. (This ignores
any cooperation of the will with grace).

7. God directly predetermines the
damnation of the reprobate, including their sins. (This is denied
by James 1:13-14; Sirach 15:11-20; 1 Cor 10:13; and ignores any
true resistance and rejection by the will).

8. The elect will be saved with no merit
of their own. (This denies heavenly reward).

9. The reprobate will be damned for no
fault of their own. (This denies true guilt and deserved
punishment).

Between these two extremes the Catholic
dogma of predestination keeps the golden mean, because it regards
eternal happiness primarily as the work of God and His grace, but
secondarily as the fruit and reward of the meritorious actions of
the predestined.

CATHOLIC TEACHING ON
PREDESTINATION AND SALVATION

The process of predestination and
salvation consists of the following five steps :

A. The first grace of vocation,
especially faith as the beginning, foundation, and root of
justification (Council of Trent, session VI, chapter 8)

B. A number of additional, actual graces
for the successful accomplishment of justification and
sanctification (1 Cor 6:11)

C. Justification itself as the beginning
of the state of grace and love

D. Final perseverance or at least the
grace of a happy death

E. The admission to eternal bliss and
glorification (Rom 8:28-30)

The Calvinist position is consistent
with itself, but is not consistent with human experience or the
Scriptures. It cannot be reconciled with the cooperation and
resistance of free will, sin and virtue, the possible loss of
grace, punishment and reward, and the universality of redemption
and grace. Calvin's God is arbitrary and despotic.

The Catholic position is consistent with
itself, with human experience, and with the Scriptures. God's
foreknowledge and foreordination of the elect to heavenly glory
includes His universal desire and sufficient grace to save all
men, our free cooperation with His grace, good works which truly
merit heavenly reward, and the real possibility -- during this
life of testing and pilgrimage -- of rejecting grace and
salvation and thus deserving the punishments of hell.

From an article by Jim Burnham (edited
by P), see also an excellent article showing the
possible compatibility of the "Five Points" of
Calvinism with St. Thomas Aquinas on predestination and Akin's new book The
Salvation Controversy available from Catholic Answers

Three interesting books by Catholics (Robert Sungenis)
and Protestants (Norman Geisler vs. James White) on salvation, predestination, free will,
and the biblical, historical, and philosophical issues are